


To the Waters and the Wild

by Sir_Thopas



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-07 03:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14072082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Thopas/pseuds/Sir_Thopas
Summary: It was a stupid, senseless death that held no greater meaning, no sacrifice. It was just an accident.





	1. To the Waters and the Wild

Leo breathed deeply as he glanced quickly around him. A group of twenty Foot soldiers had him surrounded. Leo was willing to admit to himself that he was more than a little wounded; they had managed to overwhelm him with sheer numbers and now he was sporting a nice little stab wound on his right thigh, making him favor his left leg and throwing him off considerably. He could still fight, though, probably better than any of these Foot ninjas combined, and Leo was going to prove it to them. He gritted his teeth and tensed, ready to spring into action as the Foot inched closer to the dangerous turtle.

Suddenly, a flash of light nearly blinded him as the sound of squealing tires filled his ears. He saw the Foot soldiers make a mad dash out of the way and Leo himself… well, he fell on his butt just as the Battleshell came to a screeching halt in front of him. How embarrassing, Leo thought as Mikey pulled open the door wearing his familiar grin. "You okay, Leo?" From the way Mikey had asked, Leo knew that his younger brother had witnessed his oh-so-graceful fall. Leo growled as Mikey helped him up.

"Look out!" Donnie yelled, jumping out of the driver's side as the Foot ninja started advancing on the turtles once more. Leo pointedly ignored Don's disapproving look as he once again got into his fighting stance. "Leo… you're hurt…" Don grunted out as he blocked the oncoming Foot attacks.

"No… I'm… not." Leo growled while fighting off his own Foot ninjas.

"Really?" Mikey asked dryly. "So, you always had that hole in your leg, huh?"

"Yes." Leo answered.

Don and Mike rolled their eyes and went on the offensive, and, with the combined power of the three of them, quickly dispatched the Foot ninja. Leo was immensely glad for that. His leg was numb and Leo was worried that maybe he was starting to loose feeling in it.

"Uh, guys… We're not through yet." Mikey gulped as he pointed up at the top of a building where Leo could see a whole other horde of Foot ninja were gathering. Leo blanched at the sight, worried about the possible outcome of such battle with him injured the way he was. Much to Leo's chagrin, however, Mike and Don had noticed the expression that had flit across their brother's face. Before he knew what was happening, Don and Mike had grabbed him under his arms and hurled him into the Battleshell, slamming the door shut behind him.

Leo was about to have a full on screaming fit, until he saw Donnie and Mikey hop into the front seat of the van. He had been worried that his younger brothers were going to fight off that many Foot ninja themselves. Mikey grinned as Leo exhaled the breath he had been holding. "This is a tactical retreat!" Mikey said. "No need to get worried. We're not stupid."

"Well, I'm not." Donnie quipped with a grin. Mikey stuck his tongue out as his brother started the car and took off.

"Where's Raph?" Leo demanded, happy that he had managed to sound completely in control.

Don rolled his eyes. "With Casey, drunk, but otherwise completely safe. Seriously, Leo, did you feel the need to be ironic? Because running after Raph so that you can keep him from 'doing something stupid' only to get attacked by Foot ninja while he's safe at Casey's, really wasn't your brightest move."

Leo felt his face heat up in embarrassment as he closed his eyes. His embarrassment doubled when he opened them to see Mikey studying him pensively from the passenger's seat. "You okay, bro?" Mikey asked again, worry etching his face at Leo's quiet and pallid demeanor.

Leo grimaced, "My leg isn't doing too good." He saw Mikey giving him this look that said, _no duh_. Leo sighed, feeling foolish. He then noticed that Mikey's long bandana tails had gotten caught in the door. He was about to tell him when Mikey's eyes got large.

"I think they're chasing us!"

"What?" Donnie asked distractedly.

"The Foot's got wheels!" Mikey said. Leo then watched as any trace of humor vanished from his little brother's face.

"Donnie step on it!"

Suddenly, Leo felt himself hurling through the air as the sound of breaking glass and crushing metal filled his ears. They hit us!, Leo thought wildly. He desperately tried to flip in mid-air, so as not to go flying through the windshield head first.

Leo felt his shell make impact with the dashboard, the plastic crushing under his weight. The collision had knocked the wind out of him, but luckily his shell had absorbed the impact, leaving him no worse off. Leo looked to see Donnie coughing and hacking. Leo noticed that his brilliant brother had remembered to put his seatbelt on. Unlike me, Leo thought. His body suddenly jolted as he realized that he didn't know if Mikey was had been wearing his too.

Leo got into a sitting position and looked at the passenger's seat. Like him, his youngest brother hadn't been wearing his seatbelt, but he hadn't gone flying through the windshield, either. Instead, he was slumped in his seat with his head pulled back at an odd angle, his mouth slack. The caught bandana tails kept his head taut. Leo dimly realized that his eyes were open.

"Mikey! Mikey!" Leo turned to see Donnie screaming Mikey's name, desperately wrenching at his seatbelt. Donnie scrambled across the van towards Mikey's seat, frantically rubbing his hands across Mikey's face and arms. "It's okay!" Donnie babbled. "It's not bad! I can fix this! I can fix this!"

As Leo watched his brother, he wondered why it was getting so hard to think. He felt like he was jumping up and down, trying to catch his thoughts as they floated past him, but always slipping through his fingers. He numbly wondered how Donnie thought he was going to fix a broken neck.


	2. The Stolen Child

Raphael stared into his older brother's face. In the past, Leo could make Raph angrier than any other person on the planet, but he had never hated his brother. Sure, Leo had made Raph want to scream, to break things, to wipe that superior smirk off of his face. But underneath the burning rage there was still love.

Not anymore.

The sight of Leonardo filled Raph with a blackness that at once terrified him and spurred him on. The hatred gave Raph the fuel he needed to survive, to move on. It made him want to do something. More specifically, it made him want to do something to _Leo_.

Raph drew back his hand and backhanded his older brother across the face. Raph watched with something akin to glee as his brother's face flung to the side with a loud crack.

Leo blinked.

Raph growled in frustration. That was the extent of Leonardo's reaction. Blinking was the only thing that Leo did anymore. Catatonia is what Don had called it.

When Leo and Don had arrived back at the lair about a month ago, carrying the lifeless body of their youngest brother between them, he had seemed fine. Horrifyingly fine. He told his brother and father what had happened in a simple monotonous tone that would have been more appropriate if he had been describing the events of a routine training run. Then, while the others had been too consumed in their grief to notice, Leo had went into his bedroom, sat down in his usual lotus position, and simply… slipped away.

It had taken two weeks for Raph to notice anything. Raph had holed himself up in his own room after learning that Mikey, his Mikey, his little, funny brother had died. He went through all five of the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The only time he left his room was in the middle of the night to teach every single Foot ninja what it was like to hurt. He did this almost every night. Unsurprisingly, he kept redoubling back to Stage 2: Anger.

But then he became more aware of his family – his surviving family. Splinter had been forced to take care of Leo and Don on his own; he had to postpone his own mourning to ensure the continued survival of his other sons. The result left him feeling… old and tired. Leo refused to leave the safety of his own mind and Don…

After a month, Donnie remained squarely in Stage 1: Denial.

Don refused to leave his lab, and spent his days repairing Mikey's Gameboy. Mike had asked Don to fix it the day before he died, and Don zealously worked on it as though he thought Mike was going to come storming into his lab, demanding to know if he had finished it yet and threatening to annoy him if he wasn't done. Raph secretly believed that every time he completed this task, Don would simply break the Gameboy all over again.

At Mikey's funeral, Splinter had told Raph that he would now have to shoulder the burden of leading their family. Raph hadn't paid attention, hadn't understood. He was still too filled with his own sorrow to realize what was happening around him.

He understood now though. Everyday, Raph would mediate Splinter; ease his father and sensei through his own grief. He would spoon-feed Leo soup so his lost brother wouldn't waste away while... lost somewhere. He would forcefully drag Don out of his lab, make his younger brother spar with him until Donnie was too tired to fight off sleep. And at night, he would roam the streets, protecting those who needed protection.

Raphael was finally the leader and he _hated_ it.

Staring at Leo's face, still leaning awkwardly to the side from the slap he had received, something inside of Raph broke. With a mangled sob, Raph gently tilted Leo's head until it was in an upright position once more. He threw his arms around his older brother, gripping him tightly as the tears flowed freely.

_Where did you go?_


End file.
